About two weeks after the angiogram and a week past Christmas it became obvious that I would be in a health slump that would sap my energy for months if not right up to the point where I am finally freed. The mast had to go up before it became impossible to find the energy. 
Since the decision to go back to enjoying radios and the reality of the first radio about two years have passed. The decision to set up a mast and get better rx/dx than a mobile antenna mounted on a gutter of the apartment was made tentatively almost eighteen months ago. It took six months of careful research and saving the pennies to get a ladder, just a ladder! Each time there were a few bucks to spare some tools or materials were bought. Sometimes they were bought online. Sometimes my community carers were kind enough to slog around the giant Bunnings hardware or Jaycar with me. Several times we were driven back by my weakness or the constant pain that had to be suffered when I walked anywhere. The staff in all of those places helped us as much as they could with Jaycar and Metal by the Meter being worthy of notice for excellent service. I had owned most of the tools before but there had been robbery after robbery and nothing was left of a very substantial collection.
Tuggerah Lakes 4 had built almost all of his antenna and was a passionate researcher into their use and range. It took nothing for him to convince me to make a few of my own as I love creating things that function and even though I am too mentally damaged to understand hard core calculus the theory of radio and antenna is beautiful. Making an antenna that then catches conversations, video and data is a buzz. The act of making one of these things is almost an act of spiritual reverence. My body has been broken for so long and making things releases me from that place I am unable to escape most of the time.
Enough tools were finally gathered and the huge mast arrived. (It went in one door and out the other of my little apartment) Permissions were painfully extracted and safety data was accrued and planned into the build although at this height it is simple enough. It was heading towards forty degrees centigrade when I took all the cable and the little UHF folded dipole and the brackets outside. The mast had to be run through the neighbor’s back yard along their balcony. The stationmaster antenna is as long as the apartment even before the mast goes on.
It took a couple of attempts to get it built. The heat and general weakness kept making me dizzy so I would sit inside and sip water until I could see and then start again. Don’t get me wrong. It was hard but so is riding up a mountain or a long bush walk across the spine of Tasmania and I would do either in a flash if I could still manage it. Even so, it became obvious that there had to be a more substantial effort or the mast would still be on the ground after the sun went down.
So I did it. I checked that all the mounts were straight. The cables went into waterproofed fittings and were looped and clamped against the mast so stress wouldn’t go all the way to the joins. The whole thing weighed as much as I could lift so I staggered and limped to my apartment and with every fiber of my being I fought the thing until it slanted off the roof. The hardest bit had been making sure that the fittings didn’t get crushed against the tiles of the roof. My head spun and the arteries in my chest thrummed and felt as though I had plugged into a power point. As often happens, and cannot be avoided if you want things done, I waited for it to kill me. A little bile spasmed up from my belly and I spat it away. There were several minutes before I could walk back into the shade and lay on the couch soaked with ice water and in front of a fan for almost an hour. It took all that time before the situation began to niggle at me again. Now I had done it! The mast was sitting half way to being erected and if anyone official had to help they would probably pull it down out of sheer bastardry. (This bloody US dictionary! I prefer English. Some of the spelling in the old way is very engaging; fiber(US) against fibre(Eng.))
I offered one of the neighbors money to give a hand in the final push and he said he would be over in a minute. Half an hour later he didn’t arrive so I went and offered Barbie twenty bucks if she pushed the mast onto the spigot while I lifted from the roof. Yes! I was now committed to lifting the whole thing from the roof and I had not yet actually been well enough to get onto the roof for many years.
Terror!!!
I climbed the ladder and shook all the way up. You need to understand that when you are badly handicapped and vulnerable to accidental physical harm the ladder will never look like it is safe. Your mind has it folding underneath you and not only do you fall but you are speared or crushed in the twisted aluminium. I guess that is remnant Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from all the things that have acted to make this body so painful to be in. The idea that you might add another level of pain makes you want to scream and you crush that into your body as you climb or maybe you draw it to your self and feed from it to get the energy to carry on. You cannot overstate it. It takes every molecule of your being to push into it and continue. Barbara understands that. Her life has elements of cruelty bestowed on it few of us will ever have to cope with. For a moment we were companions in pain. Her concern strengthened me.
The top of the ladder. Not quite the top. I could not make the final step to the level of the roof. It was just below the top and I have never trusted ladders when you are that far up their length. I closed my eyes until I heard her sigh. It was hot and she had given up her afternoon nap and I was lollygagging about going through some personal hell while she stood in the sun and waited. I stepped up and off onto the blistering hot roof tiles. The mast was right in front of me and I stood it up lurched towards the edge of the roof. My left shoe had a several centimeter build in one side and the roof tilt was enough to anchor me in place. I couldn’t walk. The twelve meter mast became a walking stick and using it to connect me to flat earth I sidled along the roof to a place above the ground that held the spigot. The spigot was buried deep in the ground but stood half a meter straight up. I had to give up the support of the mast to lift that weight vertically the whole half meter. Barbie watched me eying the spigot.
She chuckled. “Thought you were smart using that huge thing to hold up yer pole!” she stated scathingly. I stopped eying the spigot and raised an eyebrow at her. I could not work out how many levels of meaning she had endowed her words with. Was that dripping with sexual sarcasm? She was smiling.
“I didn’t want it to fall on some old biddy’s head”
“Most of em could do with a sharp whack from a big metal pole” she answered.
I grinned as though I had understood which of the many possible meanings were applied to the statement this time. To be honest they all worked and she didn’t mean it.
“I cannot lift this vertically while I stand on the roof,” I complained. She didn’t say anything for a while. I grunted and threw the pole straight up as high as I could lift it. I fell. I let myself fall. Once the mast reached the top of my arm’s ability to lift nothing held me to the roof. She yelled at me to lift it higher so I swore and threw myself as far back as I could. Somewhere down below me as I fell towards the edge Barbie’s little hands pushed the steel pole into place over the spigot and after toppling a few degrees off vertical I was pulled up by the mast hitting the ground. I still couldn’t walk and now I was tilted off the roof clinging to the mast. The mast stood tall though and my eighty kilos didn’t make it bend, sag, nor did it move the spigot in the ground. Something in my chest really hurt and my head spun. I would have liked to throw up but it would have fallen on my helper. I threw myself back and landed on my rump on the tiles. The moment my hands landed on the roof they started to burn and moments later the canvas shorts ceased to protect by buttocks and the burn very quickly drove me to my feet. Barbara laughed.
That ladder! It mocked me. The sun burned down and I needed to sit down but the ladder remained to be negotiated and getting on to the high rung is even more stressful than getting off. Barbie didn’t make any comment here. She knew she would have been as trapped as I was. I could barely stand and I needed to balance on the slope and reach a leg around and down to the rung. I made several abortive attempts. Damn that hot roof. I felt sick and I needed a rest before the ladder could be negotiated but I couldn’t sit or even rest my legs against the slope of the tiles. I looked. I hated myself. Years ago I could have clambered about here like a monkey and just jumped off. I forced myself to imagine I could still do it. I forced my mind to see the distance to the ground as I would if I was healthy. Then I stepped onto the ladder by falling sideways. Barbie held it so I didn’t pitch over. Even then I couldn’t get down. The angled “u” bold had to be applied from the bracket on the eaves so I clung shivering and sweating to the ladder and bolted it on. I didn’t want a big wind to bend the mast and the specialists who had assisted me had recognized I would struggle with guy ropes. They had worked out that my idea of the spiggot and extra “u” bolt on a pipe of that thickness would even be a little over-kill for the purposes of holding a light stationmaster antenna at six meters.
My feet hit the ground and I slapped twenty bucks into Barbie’s hands. She almost managed to give it back but recognized that I was aiming to lay down and didn’t give a shit about anything. Everything was left as it stood and I went to the couch with a bottle of water, a handful of pain relief and the blasted chest pain that keeps making me think I might have done enough to die this time!
